"Thirteen"
Quite a packed episode, this. Veteran scriptwriter Don McGill (and whoever else might've had a hand in it) managed to get at least an episode and a half's worth of incident in, wrapped around solving the central case but with plenty of little nudges toward resolving aspects of the longer arcs within the series - some of those resolved or at least dealt with perhaps a little too quickly. Thanks to any number of crime dramas we might've seen before, ranging from
Grand Guignol and its heirs, the weirder edge of film noir and contemporary English suspense/horror films, and German krimis and Italian gialli and on up through that other film with a digit in its title,
Se7en, and its contemporaries (and all the crime fiction that helped to inspire them), this episode's fanatic is a familiar type. One might even have grown accustomed to his sort from the other procedurals and police/investigator shows. (This is where spoilers will become more explicit.)
But what was most remarkable about the relatively breathless search for our Jesus of Nazareth wanna-be serial murderer was less about him, as telegraphed as his identity was, but about the deftness with which other potential candidates, such as Sharif Atkins' vengeful sniper, are insinuated. This allowed us as viewers to not worry too much that the agents are taking, say, Richard Wharton's homeless-man character at face value, even as we wonder if that might be a very bad idea.
Dianne Farr impressed me even more than usual, particularly wuth her interrogation of Atkins' character Clay Porter, which was also the most cleverly shot setpiece in an episode notably full of good cinematography. (This episode should be submitted for Emmy consideration in that category, I think.) Farr's Megan filling us in on what her recent mysterious (if rather unsurprising) non-FBI Department of Justice assignment had been (as an interrogation analyst for Guantanamo and similar prisoners) is almost thrown away, as was the interrupted interplay with Peter MacNicol's Larry. But all struck me as convincing, with the quick pace of the episode both helping and hurting by not quite giving anyone time to register the import of what was happening, but also leaving a fair amount suggested and sketched in just enough. Aya Sumika's presence was a plus, as the attempts at double-dating that bookend the episode were charming (though the odd bit of staging at the very end, almost as if Navi Rawat was being signaled to move out of the shot while the brothers argued over flipping a coin, caught my eye). And, of course, the B-story of this episode would be the introduction of yet another potentially continuing academic character, Andrea Roth's Alex Trowbridge. Perhaps the least-convincing bit of acting for me in this episode was the too-forced bits of rudeness David Krumholtz's Charlie displayed toward Trowbridge, who seemed rather better-natured about it than most people would be. But one thing this episode had time to do only briefly (since there was only time to do anything briefly) were the bits of non-task-oriented discussion between Rawat's Amitra, Trowbridge, Charlie and Larry, in various combinations and occasionally with members of the FBI unit; even while the characters might be teasing or flirting, this series gets across better than any other television series besides
Frasier just how much intellectuals can enjoy being intellectuals for its own sake. (Two series always mentioned together,
Numbers and
Frasier.)
And Dylan Bruno's Colby is going to have to quit jumping so far, so often.
(Anyone reading these posts should definitely also read the often perceptive and thoughtful comments in response, if you're not doing so already.)
